Augusta man retires from brick-maker after 60 years

AUGUSTA - It was 1942 when 20-year-old Sidney Waltower started working at an Augusta brick-making plant for 34 cents an hour. <br> <br> And it wasn&#39;t until Thursday that the 80-year-old worked his final shift at Thermal Ceramics, once known as Babcock & Wilcox, and retired as the company&#39;s longest-serving employee after 60 years. <br> <br> Waltower was born on his family&#39;s Burke County farm near Waynesboro, 30 miles south of Augusta. His father moved the family to Augusta during the Depression and landed a job making furnace bricks at Babcock & Wilcox. <br> <br> Waltower was hired in the plant&#39;s grinding room, removing rough edges from furnace bricks fresh from the kiln. Two years later, he went to work in the plant&#39;s construction department. <br> <br> Eventually, he moved to the trucking department, where he drove tractor-trailers and dump trucks between the Gordon Highway brick plant and the Albion Kaolin mine near Hephzibah, which produces the white clay used to make the bricks. <br> <br> His last assignment was hauling material inside the plant. <br> <br> During his 60-year tenure at the plant, Waltower only missed work once -- when he had surgery in 1996. He never had an accident and always showed up for work early. <br> <br> Walt Alexanderson, the company&#39;s human resources director, calls Waltower a model employee. Waltower&#39;s entire personnel file contains only five pieces of paper -- his application and four sheets of training records.